We are currently seeking coders and people with experience in the CryEngine Animation Graph to advise us on implementing a prototype melee combat system. We’ve brought to bear years of experience in traditional Japanese martial arts and historical forms of European swordsmanship to design a system that combines:

- Physical realism; - An approach intended to foster emergent gameplay; and - An emphasis on freedom of control

We believe that the design we have developed pays homage to the best elements of a number of our inspirations (Mount and Blade: Warband, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Prince of Persia 3D) while adding important new elements drawn from our martial arts training.

The mechanics of the system, and their interactions, have been planned in detail, and we are now ready to begin the implementation process. For this we need a competent coder from whom we would also welcome creative input. We have an animator and a modeller able and ready to produce the assets necessary for the prototyping process.

We have plans for a variety of potential projects which would utilise these mechanics, but we realise that gameplay is not only the first step, but also the fundamental one. For that reason, prototyping of these core mechanics is our top priority.

If you would like more information, and you have experience in coding, please send an application including any relevant portfolio material to impossible.pinwheel@gmail.com, or to me in a PM.

Animation Demonstration

This video shows a short sequence of attacks intended as a demonstration of the broad style of combat we hope to achieve in our Melee Combat Prototype for the CryEngine 3 SDK. The quality of this demonstration is not indicative of the final quality of the animations.

Although this animation will not feature in the Prototype itself, it is illustrative of the kinds of attack (and the ability to chain attacks) around which the Prototype will be built.

Last edited by Ilsamir Lord on 10.06.2012, 08:57, edited 5 times in total.

UpdateWe are continuing to make progress. You may have noticed that I've modified my signature - we are no longer seeking a coder to do our work for us ( ) but rather someone who would be willing to receive the occasional query if/when we get stuck . A person similarly experienced with the Animation Graph system would also be most appreciated.

In the eventuality that this prototype is successful, any contributing consultants will be fully credited.

Work continues, but our lack of coding/scripting experience is starting to tell. We have a number of new animations implemented, and a fair amount of code written, built and testable. In spite of this, we still find ourselves butting up against barriers much more often than we'd like, and with only the SDK documentation to help us.

The nature of the project means that we wish to keep as much of our methodology private as we possibly can (at least until our first public alpha releases), so we're between a rock and a hard place in terms of getting the kind of advice we need (occasionally available on the forums) and not disclosing information that forms the very core of our design.

For that reason, we are still in serious need of advisors who would be willing to give us tailored and confidential advice as we build up our prototype! If you can help, please send me a PM or an email. Your work will be not only credited, but immensely appreciated.

Loggers1234 wrote:Get full community involvement, and then when its all working customize it the way you want. I would get behind helping a fully accessible and open source combat mod.

Hi Loggers, thanks for posting, even though the thread has not been updated for a long time.

The idea of an open-source melee system is not unreasonable, but it would also rob our team (and any projects we were to include it in) of a "selling point" if we were to commercialise our work in the future. That might sound greedy, I guess, but we've put a huge amount of effort into designing this system.

We also feel that it probably wouldn't be good for anyone if there was a glut of melee-focussed games all using the same system. Melee combat has many more important variables than, say, shooting, but even shooting-based games have enormous and justified variation in their mechanics. It seems to me that the more solutions people come up with to different design problems, the more likely it is that someone will hit on a good one and, more importantly, on the right one for the needs of their project. Of course, if other teams choose to imitate one another's systems that's entirely up to them.

Out of interest, what kind of skills would you bring to the table? It sounds like you may have such an open-source system in mind, if so I wish you luck

All rights reserved. Crytek, Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Crysis Wars and CRYENGINE® are registered trademarks
of Crytek in the EU, the USA & other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.